


About a Boy

by visionshadows



Series: Her Journey Bright and Pure [24]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Divorce, Gender Issues, Hockey, M/M, POV Outsider, Transgender, Transitioning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 22:12:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/visionshadows/pseuds/visionshadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cameron was six when his parents started divorcing...</p>
            </blockquote>





	About a Boy

When Cameron was six, his parents started to get divorced. Started is the best word because it took a long and messy time to finally break them apart completely and really, Cameron kind of hated it. They all did, but Caelen did his best to keep Carson and Cameron from being too upset.

There was always hockey luckily. Practices and knee hockey and shinny in the driveway. Dad would play hockey no matter how upset he was. Mom never protested and would stand in the goal with a glove and a goalie stick all afternoon if it meant they were having fun. 

By the time Claude moved in, it was obvious to anyone looking that Cameron was really kind of crazy talented. Caelen and Carson were both good, much better than average for their age groups, but Cameron was the one who had the most raw talent. 

Claude was the one who suggested that Cameron start playing in the Flyers system even though he was technically too young for the youth league. But he tried out and he made it despite his age and small size. Everything was really good for awhile, even when Claude moved out to keep up appearances and Coots moved in.

Then Dad signed in Montreal and Claude’s smile dimmed and suddenly they were living almost the entire time at their mom’s except for the occasional weekend when Dad was home. It felt like having three divorced parents even though they only had two and Dad and Claude were still together.

When the NHL shut down for the Olympics, Dad flew back from Montreal and spent the entire time home with them. They watched every game, then called Claude constantly, and somehow Cameron ended up talking to Crosby on the phone. Crosby grilled him on passing techniques before passing the phone back to Claude who just laughed and called Crosby a loser. Which was a lot nicer than what he usually called him.

Dad was able to stay long enough to welcome Claude home, admire the gold medal, and have one evening as a family. Cameron held the gold medal in his hands and imagined winning it himself one day. He could hear Crosby’s voice in the back of his head telling him that being the best meant working harder than everyone else. 

That day Cameron vowed to himself he would be the best. 

After the 2014 Olympics, there was some sort of truce between Claude and Sidney everywhere but on the ice. They were friends and even practiced together during the off-season that year, mostly at Sidney’s ridiculous house in Pittsburgh, but occasionally up in Montreal. 

There were hockey players in and out of Sidney and Geno’s house in Pittsburgh. At fourteen, Cameron had been on the synthetic ice rink in Sidney’s basement with people like Jonathon Toews, Patrick Kane, Jarome Iginla, Geno, Claude and of course, his Dad. Sidney’s sister Taylor was in goal and the Lemieux kids were there most of the time as well. 

Sidney was rehabbing a broken leg so he wasn’t allowed to skate, but that didn’t stop him bullying everyone. No one was immune to Sidney yelling at them, even Mario when he joined them one day. 

(Which okay, Cameron knew a lot of hockey players but stepping onto the ice with Mario Lemieux was kind of insane).

There had been one night where Sidney and Claude fought, lots of yelling and Sidney saying that he didn’t have any reason to trust Claude. Cameron had been in the den with his brothers playing video games with Geno. At the first hint of yelling, Geno was up and moving, ordering them to stay put. 

That was the same night they all found out that Sidney Crosby was transgender. Claude, being the idiot he always was, had walked into a room that turned out to be Sidney’s room where she kept makeup and womens’ clothes. It was also the same night he learned that Geno was really, really scary when he was protecting Sidney. 

The next morning Sidney was wearing a pair of boxer shorts and a pink Malkin T-shirt which Claude gave her shit about because she was wearing her boyfriend’s number until Sidney pointed out that Claude was wearing a pair of too-short Buffalo Sabres pajama pants. 

Cameron got used to summers with Sidney, Geno, Claude, and his Dad in Pittsburgh. Carson and Caelen got bored of it after the first year and were old enough that Dad let them stay in Haddonfield themselves for the three weeks. 

Both Sidney and Jonathon Toews sponsored him to get into Shattuck-St. Mary’s when he was sixteen. Caelen got drafted by the Flyers and Claude was over the moon. Dad retired and moved back to Haddonfield where Carson was the only one home because Caelen was in Adirondack with the Phantoms and he was in Minnesota. A year later the Flyers drafted Carson as well. It looked like the whole family would end up on the Flyers by the time Cameron got drafted.

Then Cameron tore his ACL. Like completely tore it, shredded the ligament and managed to shatter part of the joint at the same time. It was an injury that could have very well kept him out of hockey for the rest of his life. It kept him out of the draft when he was 18 and again when he was 19. When he was 20, he was playing for the QMJHL and while he wasn't as good as he used to be, he was starting to get his feet under him and put it all together again. 

It was a shock to everyone in the family when Sidney drafted him in the first round that year. She had mentioned it to Dad briefly that she was looking at Cameron in the first round, but nothing really came from it. Sidney walked up to the podium, looking more like a woman every time he saw her, and announced his name with the 25th draft pick. 

And just like that Cameron found himself playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Claude, Caelen, and Carson were all in the Flyers organization at some level and Dad was coaching the Flyers Junior Team. 

But Cameron was a Penguin. He was Geno's rookie which meant he was living with Sidney and Geno (and Geno’s parents most of the time). 

It meant that Geno was the one who showed him around the locker room at Consol, explained how things went during practices, and what it meant to be a Pens rookie and a first round draft pick. 

It also meant that there was a horribly mortifying conversation where Geno told him about the porn chest by the steam room and how you were allowed to take what you wanted, but to return it in the same condition. Even more embarrassing was when Geno opened it and began to rifle through it to see what was in there. 

“Sidney’s stuff still here. I take that home,” Geno had laughed, before pulling out a couple of magazines and tucking them under his arm. “Everything you want in here. No one judge.”

Cameron hid his face with his hand and tried not to die in embarrassment thinking about Sidney looking at porn. He had to live with her. 

Brent, the other rookie who had made the team outright, got the porn chest talk from Miller which was a lot less embarrassing since Miller was a total bro and mostly talked about how there was something awesome about old school magazine porn and kids needed to respect their porn past. Brent also told him that Miller had a wicked collection of 70’s porn on VHS.

Cameron didn’t tell Brent what it was like living with the Pens captain and the part owner of the team who was formerly both the Pens captain and a man. He didn’t talk about the mornings he stumbled out of bed to find Geno dancing with Sidney in the kitchen to no music or when he found Sidney taking care of the bruises Geno got. He didn’t talk about the nights where Sidney was crying for no reason because her hormone dosage was increased or how Geno would reorganize Sidney’s nail polish when he was trying to keep himself from shouting at her. 

Cameron kind of loved living with them. It was a lot like living with his Dad and Claude, the easy back and forth, the teasing, the quiet expressions of love. It made him nostalgic for home and the family that was on the other side of the state. 

Sidney was stubborn and weird and really bad at emotional support but knew when to sit next to him on the couch and analyze plays instead of calling attention to how Cameron was kind of crying about having to play against Claude and Caelen. Geno was more free with hugs and pulled him close on the couch like Claude would. It was comforting and reassuring. 

Geno’s parents weren’t always there. They had a wing in Sidney and Geno’s house in Pittsburgh as well as the house up in Cole Harbour. They came and went, but were there the first two months of the season. They acted like Cameron was one of their children as well, scolding him in Russian for not taking care of himself when he stayed out too late and forcing food on him. 

Okay that was mostly Natalia. Vladimir just rolled his eyes at her fussing and told Cameron he needed to work on his slapshot. 

The games were hard, brutal even. The pace in the NHL was entirely different than in Major Juniors. Cameron had no idea how anyone managed to party after a game. All he wanted to do was crash. When they were home, no one gave him shit about it, but on the road, even Geno got on his case to go out. 

He let Geno drag him out to bars and clubs. He let Brent try to get him to pick up girls. He let Geno tell him it was okay if he liked boys. Mostly he really was just too tired to pick up at all. (And he liked girls - most of the time). He complained on the phone to Claude about it and Claude had just laughed at him. 

His Dad was much more understanding even though he was totally embarrassed at the conversation. He told him that Cameron didn’t need to feel pressured to do anything he didn’t want to do and to talk to Geno if people got too pushy about it. 

When they were in Montreal in December to play the Canadiens, Sidney and the Malkin’s flew up as well. Geno disappeared during the day to unknown doctors appointments with them, not even practicing with the team before the game. They stayed a day longer than everyone else and Geno caught up with them in Edmonton. 

“Is good,” Geno had said to Cameron, squeezing his shoulder. “Just tired.”

Cameron had learned pretty quickly that Geno’s English was slow to come back if he was too tired or had spent a lot of time only speaking Russian. Sidney tried to speak English a lot of the time, but when Geno’s parents were around it was easier to speak Russian. Cameron understood; they spoke French at home. 

“Sidney’s okay, right?” Cameron had asked.

Geno had smiled softly. “Good doctors appointments. More surgery soon. Have to see many doctors before.”

Back when they had first found out that Sidney was transgender, Geno had given them some stuff to read and Cameron knew that he wasn’t supposed to ask about any surgery or anything like that. He remembered the interview that Sidney had given and how she was adamant that no one needed to know about what form her change of gender took. 

So he didn’t ask and Geno didn’t tell. 

It turned out to be more facial surgery and a tracheal shave so Cameron knew pretty quickly what had been done. Sidney’s voice was weird for awhile after that, scratchy. She seemed to be having trouble modulating her voice and it was coming out more masculine. She was really frustrated about it and spent a lot of time not talking. 

It was like the whole house breathed a sigh of relief when her voice went back to normal and she restarted vocal training. Geno certainly relaxed which made Cameron relax which meant they both played a lot better. 

There was an anniversary in March which Cameron didn’t try to celebrate with them, but Sidney told him later that it was the second anniversary of her starting hormone treatment. When he did the math in his head he figured out that it meant she had started during her last season and not at the end of the season like she told everyone. 

The team was good. It was basically them and Flyers going neck and neck into the playoffs. Edmonton was better than everyone else in the NHL, but the Pens and Flyers were holding their own. 

Sidney came to the away games in Philadelphia during the playoffs. She sat up in a luxury box with Cameron’s dad and sometimes Geno’s parents. They all had dinner after the game, but after that Sidney and Geno would go back to the hotel and Cameron would get to go home. Since Carson was up from Adirondack for the playoffs, he stayed as well. Caelen wouldn’t always stay the night but sometimes he would and they all would pile into the den, Dad and Claude on the couches and be a family. 

The Pens didn’t make it out of that playoff series and for the first time since 1975 the Flyers raised the Stanley Cup, beating Edmonton in five games. Cameron watched from the seats, happy for his family. Claude skated around the rink, the Cup held above his head before he turned and handed it off to Caelen, step-father to step-son. When the families started pouring onto the ice, Cameron went out with his Dad and got to see his Dad raise the Cup and kiss it for the first time in his career. 

It wasn’t Cameron’s Cup so he didn’t touch it. He was only a rookie after all. 

Cameron would lift the Cup when he won it for Pittsburgh anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> This is hopefully going to give a bit of background to the Sidney/Claude friendship plus expound a bit on the timeline since Cameron's life here is a number of years. I wanted an outside POV and I thought Cameron would provide an interesting one - especially considering the Flyer/Pens rivalry.
> 
> Oh - and the porn chest was a real thing. Only it belonged to the Philadelphia Phillies and they let the Philadelphia Eagles use it back when they shared the facilities at Veterans Stadium. Thank you sports radio!


End file.
